Instantaneous cure—a Christian’s goal

Thomas Richard Mitchinson | from The Christian Science Journal

Suffering with a fever all afternoon and not making any headway with my own prayers, I asked a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me. He said he would, and the moment I hung up the phone, I was well.

The instant freedom from pain and illness was wonderful. In a modest way, I knew what those who were instantly healed by Jesus must have felt. This quick healing reminded me of a passage from the writings of Mary Baker Eddy. She wrote: “Less teaching and good healing is to-day the acme of ‘well done;’ a healing that is not guesswork,—chronic recovery ebbing and flowing,—but instantaneous cure” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 355).

I am a spiritual child of God, and this truth outlawed anything that could bring suffering.

Wanting to know more about this “instantaneous cure,” I called the practitioner back. I told him that I had prayed all afternoon with no effect, but when I asked him to pray, I was immediately well. I asked him what made his prayers so effective. He said he just wouldn’t believe that I could be sick. His disbelief in the sickness broke the hold my own belief of my illness had on my thought. Now this was something new for me to think about. He referred me to this sentence in Science and Health: “Disbelief in error destroys error, and leads to the discernment of Truth” (p. 346). His said his disbelief had its foundation in the fact that I am a spiritual child of God, and this truth outlawed anything that could bring suffering.

This, then, is instantaneous healing: When the truth of God and His child becomes more real, more valid to us than the illness or discord presented by the material senses, the adverse condition necessarily disappears. This is how Jesus lived and healed. Our goal as Christians today is to follow Jesus and live this way so that we heal quickly also. Instantaneous cure can always be our goal. It doesn’t matter whether we or someone we are praying for has suffered for a day, a month, or years. That moment when the truth about each of us as God’s perfect image becomes the jewel that occupies thought, the mesmeric hold of disease is broken and healing comes. It doesn’t matter whether the source of the illumination is from our prayer or that of another. What matters is the yielding of our attention from the physical condition to the spiritual activity going on.

I think of this activity as spiritual discovery. As we strive to turn our attention to God and are willing to learn about ourselves as His image and likeness, we discover more of the reality of our perfect being. We stop thinking of God as far away as we learn that we cannot be separated for a moment from our Creator. The presence and power of divine Spirit fills all space, even right where any sense of confusion or discord appears to be. As God’s image, each of us is not a material personality or blob of protoplasm, but the very expression of health, goodness, peace, joy, and love.

We can forfeit the belief that we have been born into matter.

We can forfeit the belief that we have been born into matter, are a certain age with a material history combining good and bad episodes—that we’ve been ill in the past or are ill now and desperate to find our way out. Giving up the material view of ourselves, we can find our present perfection as God’s image.

God is never afraid, neither is His image. God is not transfixed on a material body, its condition, desires, and functions, and as His likeness, neither is our true selfhood. This understanding loosens the grip of disease on our thinking and enables us to let go of a material view of ourselves and accept our true identity as God’s well child now. When our perfect, spiritual selfhood becomes paramount in our thinking, instantaneous healing results.

Instantaneous healing comes when the truth of God and ourselves as God’s reflection means more to us and becomes more real to us than whatever physical condition is confronting us. Healing can occur as quickly as hanging up the phone after asking a practitioner for Christian Science treatment. When it takes longer, we can keep reaching out for those special moments of spiritual discovery. They bring the inspiration which forwards an instantaneous cure.

Thomas “Tim” Mitchinson, a Christian Science practitioner, lives in Naperville, Illinois.